When a society decides that wealth is the ultimate evidence of wisdom, it stops doing the hard work of critical analysis. We stop asking if a policy is sustainable and start asking who is proposing it. If the proposer is a billioneerer with a fleet of yachts, the policy is given a "wisdom premium."The expensive transport, the houses, and the raiment are tools used to maintain a hierarchy that prioritises "the look" of leadership over the substance of it. It creates a psychological barrier...

For more than four decades, the Caribbean Examinations Council has been one of the region’s most consequential institutions. Beyond certifying students, CXC has shaped curricula, classroom priorities, parental expectations, and — quietly but decisively — the values our societies reward. It is precisely because of this influence that I write to you now.

For as ancient wisdom quietly reminds us, without vision a people perish — and empathy, patiently taught, is among the clearest forms of vision a society can possess.